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| Credits |
Director: Anthony Waller
Starring: Adrian Paul, Kate Nauta
Screenplay: Everett De Roche, Anthony Waller
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I'm not usually a fan of films where there's a possibility the viewer is seeing things through the eyes of a crazy person, as in perhaps maybe nothing in the movie is real. There's something about the idea of watching a movie where nothing's actually happened that makes it seem like a waste of time to me. I know movies can be a waste of time in general, but if I'm wasting my time I at least want to do it on a movie that has a story occurring somewhere other than one of the character's heads. Occasionally a film like this will hold my interest, like with the superb Session 9, but more often than not I disengage and start making up my own movie in my head about a mad scientist that crosses a crocodile with a thylacine and it gets lose and eats a whole city. I call it Thylocroc. Eat your heart out, Roger Corman. While it's not in a league with Session 9, which is the case with pretty much every movie that's not Session 9, Nine Miles Down was far better than I feared it would be.
A security guy arrives at a drill site in northern Africa to find the place eerily empty. There is a dead body, but he doesn't notice it because he's pretty crap at security sweeps. He finds some odd shit like a mutilated jackal, but still bunks down. The next day he meets the only survivor, and despite the fact that some weird shit is going down, he still stays with her. It's unclear whether the survivor is someone who was working at the site, or something that was unleashed when the drill got… NINE MILES DOWN.
Either way, there are things that don't make much sense, because there's stuff the woman does that don't work whether she's the devil or just some lady. I may be reading too much into this, but if a movie strives to make the viewer wonder what's going on, then wonder I shall, and there are some things that happen that don't work. Plus, they happen outside of our lead's perception, so it can't be that he's just fucked in the head and that's why things don't add up.
Nine Miles Down is a catalogue of the lead's own personal torment, and while it's serious in tone, there were a few elements that were clearly inspired by Evil Dead II. The film suffers from a bit of dodgy CG, but it also has some very nice imagery to help balance that out. Despite only having about four people in it, the cast is distinctly multi-national, with a pom, a seppo and an Australian playing key parts. The female lead is not much of an actress, and though our hero is a bit better, he also struggles to believably convey certain emotions. I liked that Nine Miles Down took its time establishing things and giving the story time to build tension, but this also causes some implausibility because I find it hard to believe anyone would stay at the site after finding most of the crew dead. Forget the creepy wind and loud bangs in the night that the guy puts up with, if I found carnage in a place and didn't know what had happened, I wouldn't blindly follow orders to just stay in the area. This guy just ain't concerned enough over these suspicious deaths he's found.
Plot holes and shaky acting aside, the movie does have a few good moments, and is by no means a bad film. It's certainly decent, and better than a lot of the "Is he/she crazy?" genre has to offer. |
